The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses

Winifred M. O'Rourke was a writer and journalist in Saskatoon.

To many, a Jehovah’s Witness is a man or woman standing impassively on a busy street corner holding a copy of Watchtower to attract the attention of passers-by. Heather and Gary Botting, authors of The Orwellian World of Jehovah’s Witnesses, had early childhood experiences as Witnesses. Gary Botting at five years old, accompanied by his seven-year-old sister, sold his first copy of Watchtower by knocking on a stranger’s door. This episode and other biographical data are found in the preface to the book.

Both authors were subjected to the educational stream prescribed for a Witness who would even-tually become a full-time volunteer minister. At high school, boys took technical subjects and girls followed a commercial program. However, both Bottings saw a wider world and both pursued university studies. Gary Botting has a doctorate in English literature from the University of Alberta, with a research emphasis on Orwell and William Golding. Heather Botting majored in anthropology, with post-graduate studies in religious anthropology. They live in Red Deer, Alberta, with their four children.

The book deals with the world view of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and with their historical development, history and prophecy, and the indoctrination process, including the mental regulation of youth. In each area the authors make a connection with Orwell’s novel 1984. Statistics show that in 1983 the number of “publishers” (Witness members) totalled 2.5 million, an increase of 150,000 over the previous year. However, each year, tens of thousands forsake the Witnesses as they do not see the sect continuing to offer them “symbols of significance” for their personal lives. In 1978, nearly 30,000 Witnesses were “disfellowshipped” because they did not measure up to new rigid standards.

The publishing arm of the Witnesses (The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society) produces massive quantities of printed matter. Circulation of Watchtower is over 10 million copies per issue (numerous graphic illustrations from Watchtower are reproduced in the book). It is through Watchtower that Witnesses receive their indoctrination and guide to weekly study groups. The vast number of Society publications keep the “current body of symbols alive for the membership,” the authors state.

People opt for millennial solutions because of economic circumstances and threat of nuclear disaster; this, according to the authors, is the reason for the attraction to the Witnesses in the eighties. But, they continue, “for many dissidents the mass manipulation of brain and heart that the Society requires of Jehovah’s Witnesses is the ultimate tragic apostasy” (p.182).

This well-written book is worthwhile reading for its objective facts relating to Jehovah’s Witnesses; but, by analogy, it points to other world systems (not connected specifically to religion) that restrict human freedoms.